I am working on a piece to capture the ghostly figure of “Nelia of Legend” at the Bridge at Cymerie. It’s not done, but I really like where it’s going.
ne, but I like where it’s going.
ghosts
mounter archer
No Trace
Spring is such a time of travel madness it puts a serious damper on writing time and energy. Zare will return as soon as I can manage! In the meantime, I’ve done a little painting. Not, you know, a LOT, since I’ve been rather busy, but a little!
I’m not sure this piece is done, but it’s Trinh approaching the spot where Shyr Valla, the Eighth City, used to be. Trinh is actually one of my favorite characters in the big story. The big story, of which River Rebellion is only the beginning.
Fan wear
55-Trinh
I was next to the King now, and stopped as if I’d been struck. “All of them?”
“She hasn’t done anything like this since she hunted down the most loyal and the seers. It’s been taxes, monuments, rules and favors…people died undeserved deaths but they weren’t hunted like rabbits.”
“There must be hundreds of nymphs in Dalyn,” I said, still disbelieving.
“For generations, the River Folk have been part of the kingdom and commerce of Dalyn. A few hundred souls out of ten thousand…but a few hundred innocent souls in cold blood. A few hundred souls I should protect.” He kicked the grate in front of the fire, I flinched, then he continued, his voice hollow, “I was never going to be the figurehead of this rebellion, but I would have liked to have been a good king. Not remembered as Narya’s pawn.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. Not the figurehead? He was King. Who else would be the figurehead?
“I have to give the order, Zare,” Tarr finally looked at me, pleading, “If I do not, Khattmali will. They will all die brutally, and many in my household will die with them for my insurrection. I do not have the men to resist her, not yet.” His blue eyes were unguarded and radiating pain
I saw another fear in his eyes and whispered it, “And how will they trust you after you have done this?”
Tarr turned back the fire and looked at it as if he might crawl into it. “It’s alright, they don’t have to.” His voice was quiet and I realized suddenly that the Galhirim—that the ghostly girl claiming to be Nelia of legend—was the figurehead for this rebellion.
The thundering in my blood quieted into a smooth and deadly current. I reached out and peeled one of the King’s hands off the mantel then tugged him toward the couch. I perched on the edge and pulled him down next to me, still holding his hand. An idea was forming. It was probably an awful idea. I looked to Quill, he was already watching me as if he could sense what I was thinking.
Before I could say anything, however, a knocking pattern sounded on the secret door. The panel of the wall slipped aside and a man stepped in, followed by a palace guard. Quill and Jemin both bowed, and Tarr turned his head. I stared at the newcomer in shock: He was dressed in dark clothes of fine make, and was wearing a sword. He had blue eyes, light brown hair tipped with copper, and his face…was just like Tarr’s. He stopped short when he noticed me sitting with the King.
“Your Highness,” said Tarr, squeezing my hand. “I would like you to meet my brother, Trinh Kegan, King of Dalyn.”
I should’ve stood up and curtsied, but I sat and stared. Trinh looked a little taken aback himself, but he bowed slightly, “Princess Zare, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I wasn’t expecting you to be here tonight.” He gave his brother a sharp glance.
“Your army disappeared,” I said. “You disappeared.”
Trinh grimaced.
“You rode away and never returned.” I cast a sharp look of my own at Tarr, letting go of his hand, “My father was the only conquered king not personally killed by the Nether Queen.”
“That’s still true,” said Tarr, “It’s a long story.”
“I’m listening,” I growled.
Trinh came around to the front of the couch and Quill brought the chair from the desk for him. “It’s not a story I intended to be telling tonight,” Trinh gave his brother another hard look as he sat down. “We have more pressing matters.”
I was astonished at the sight of a long dead prince, and I was angry at him for being alive while Dalyn fell. He also looked so much like Tarr they could have been twins, though I knew that Trinh was several years older. “Give me the short version,” my tone was tart.
The brothers looked at one another, Trinh was irritated and Tarr was not sorry. My hearted warmed toward him a little. “The Galhirim deserve to know,” stated Tarr, coolly.
Trinh tipped his head and turned to me. “The short version is that I rode out at the head of the army to succor Shyr Valla, which was again under siege by the armies of Hirhel. When we arrived, the armies had withdrawn, leaving an empty camp before the city walls. Fearing something was afoot, I sent scouts into the hills, and myself turned back toward Dalyn with eight of my knights. We were thrown to the ground by wave of power that swept through the forest like a mighty wind. When we got up, we rode hard for Shyr Valla—for that’s whence the power flowed—we found no trace of our army, the camp, or the city. In dismay we turned back to Dalyn. By the mercy of Eloi we met a peddler on the road who told us that Narya had conquered Dalyn and Tarr had been her vassal king for six years.” Here Trinh paused and shook his head, while I tried to grasp what he’d just said. “So I did not ride through the city gates in my golden armor, but snuck in by ways known only to my family and sought to learn where my brother’s loyalties truly lay.”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted, “You were knocked down…and six years passed?”
“Essentially,” replied Trinh.
“But how?”
“I don’t know, it wasn’t my doing.”
“My brother gave me quite a scare when he showed up,” cut in Tarr, picking up my hand again, a gesture of comfort. “I naturally assumed he was a ghost—not only did he look just as I remembered him, but he got past my guards.”
Quill cleared his throat, “He did not sneak past your guards, your Majesty, he convinced them.”
“She stopped time,” I whispered, remembering my first audience with Tarr Kegan.
“She is a petty and jealous human being,” there was a snarl of derision in Trinh’s voice that reminded me that he was perhaps the only living general who had defeated the Nether Queen in battle. I thought of my brothers’ skepticism and looked at Trinh and Tarr closely. Now that I studied, Trinh did look a touch older than Tarr, but certainly not by the ten-year margin he should have been. Either Trinh’s fantastic story was true, or the Tarr had gone through a great deal of trouble to find a look alike. But to what end? What could he possibly gain from such a bizarre story?
Zebra
To Change a Mind
“Sometimes if you want to change a man’s mind, you have to change the mind of the man next to him first.”
This is one of my favorite quotes from The King of Attolia.
Are you excited for the new Attolia book, Thick as Thieves, which comes out later this month?
You can pick up your own quote art on Redbubble or Society 6.
Portrait
Pinterest is a vast resource of images from which to practice your art. This was practiced off a piece linked here. Practice, practice, practice, right?
I don’t properly know what character this might be. Not Zare, I think. Perhaps A’rora, who you have not met. Yet.
53-Messages
Three weeks passed pleasantly enough. I certainly didn’t mind having a hot bath every night, and a seemingly endless supply of fine dresses. We snuck out to the gardens to spar in the mornings, then usually spent the afternoons lying low in our rooms or the library. Most of the time it was Quill and Vaudrin with us in the little house under the poplar trees, but sometimes one of them was on duty and Jemin filled in. Namal and I thrived under their instruction; besides grappling, we also practiced with swords, knives and staves. I was thrilled to be getting stronger again, having both good food and several hours of training time every day. It was good that we already insisted on bathing alone, however, as the bruises from our sparring would have certainly raised eyebrows.
We learned the way to and from the library on our own, though Namal still insisted that someone accompany me if he wasn’t going. I didn’t mind since I found Quill, Vaudrin and Jemin to be good company. There is nothing like a companion with whom you can sit in silence. This was especially important since, even though the library was generally deserted, we couldn’t very well talk about the Nether Queen or our pasts, and eventually the list of things you can’t discuss drowns out the things you can.
The atmosphere of the palace, overall, was not friendly. We avoided courtiers, and when we did encounter them I felt their looks drag down me with disdain so tangible I checked my dress the first time it happened. They had no doubt heard that the King had taken…interest…in a humble spice merchant’s daughter. I was an otherwise unimportant object of derision, and I did not enjoy it. I tried to focus on the fact that there was great safety in this perception, but that didn’t help as much as I hoped it would. The red-headed child who walked the young hounds was the only soul at the palace who was warm toward us, and we sometimes played with the hounds when we came upon him in the garden.
I did not see the King—though each morning another note arrived with his seal, bearing a sweetly worded invitation to join him for a few hours in the morning. I took to keeping these notes in a drawer, tied with a ribbon–figuring that’s what a girl in love would do. I knew Amantha had found them, and doubtless read them.
My father and Namal exchanged a few coded letters which covered the high points of the negotiations with Tarr and also dropped little tidbits about the family. Father was recovering from his wounds, Mother was doing well. Nadine and Ayglos were keeping themselves occupied. Which I hoped meant someone had worked out a way for them to spar in secret. I didn’t press Namal for details, but I knew he’d met with Tarr at least once more to discuss strategy and alliance. It didn’t seem to be a question of friendship between our kingdoms, but more a dispute about how to move forward with subversion.
It was evening, and I was curled up in front of the fire in my rooms, finishing the epic poem I’d started the first day, when a knock came from my dressing room again. I didn’t lounge about without a robe anymore, so I looked up and called, “Come in.”
The door opened and Jemin stepped in. “Good evening,” he managed. “The King wishes an audience with you, in his chambers.”
“Alright,” I said slowly, surprised. I closed my book and rose. “Like this? Now?”
He nodded. He looked grim, and that made my stomach tighten.
“Alright,” I said again, moving uncertainly toward him. “Through the dressing room?”
“Yes, your Highness,” Jemin stepped aside and held the door for me as I walked into my dressing room. At the back of the room, part of the wall had swung back into a dark hallway. A lamp hung on a hook just inside the hallway. I stepped forward and Jemin followed, swinging the door closed behind us. He took the lamp off the hook and led the way down the hall. It was a narrow space, but I could stand and move comfortably. Jemin barely fit.
“Is something wrong?” I asked quietly.
“Ravens came from Hirhel today.”
I balked. Hirhel. The Nether Queen’s seat.
Jemin looked at me, “She has not discovered your hiding place,” he guessed my worst fears easily enough.
But it wasn’t good news. How could it be? The hall curved, and here and there other narrow passages opened up. After a while Jemin turned right and, then left, and then went up a narrow flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs was another door, on which he knocked a little pattern.
A bolt slid and the door opened, Jemin stepped in and offered me a hand. I accepted and with a deep breath crossed the threshold into the King’s chambers.
The door, disguised as a panel of the wall, slid closed behind us. The room itself was round, and it had with a vaulted ceiling. A huge four poster bed covered in rich blue covers was to the right. There was an ornate writing desk in the middle and a monstrous stone fireplace on the left. A long couch tossed with furs faced the fireplace.
The King was leaning both hands on the mantel and staring into the fire. He was wearing fine trousers, and an open collared white shirt that had clearly gone under a doublet of some sort. He looked as if he’d gotten distracted while getting ready for bed. Standing to the right of the fireplace, clearly intent on the King, but now looking at me, was Quill. Our eyes met, he dipped his chin.
“Your Majesty,” said Jemin, “Princess Zare is here.”
“Hello,” said King Tarr, not turning.
Hesitance wouldn’t accomplish anything, so I walked forward until I reached the couch. “Your Majesty.”
“They will all die tomorrow,” said Tarr, so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.
A chill shuddered through me. “Who?”
“The soldiers from Gillenwater who lost the King of Galhara.”
I actually wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Those soldiers hadn’t been the best to my family, and we had killed a few in the rescue…but still this was different.
“Narya is angry,” continued Tarr, “because even if the men from Gillenwater were wrong about who they caught, it’s sown doubt that her conquest was complete.” The King lifted his head, looking up at the empty wall above the fireplace. “So she ordered me to have them killed. Immediately.”
“Oh.” He’d have to give the order. I moved around the couch and ventured closer to him. He still hadn’t looked at me. My eyes flicked to Quill, his mouth was a thin line and the look in his face warned me there was more.
“She also,” the King’s voice strangled, then he continued, “wants the nymphs in the Dalyn and the surrounding towns rounded up for questioning and execution.”
Sketching
This piece isn’t finished. I’m not satisfied with Quill’s face (men are hard to draw!) and haven’t determined what weapon is in his left hand. But I like how it’s coming so far.
The Legend of Zare Caspian 